slow op12.16 after reinstall & more

had opera 12.16 working fine windows 8.1
then came the need to reinstall ...metro corrupted, more misery
reinstalled windows 8, then udates (more than 70) & then update to 8.1
now, reinstall opera 12.16 fresh dld with saved profile
this is painfully slow and will not customize properly & not showing icons for my bookmarks, but really very slow ...this cannot be true !!
I could use some help with this cuz I hafta use the DREADED M$IE in the meanwhile as I don't have all day to wait for one page to open...
please help !!